Donald Trump has appointed a vocal advocate for Jan. 6 Capitol rioters with ties to a Nazi sympathizer to a Justice Department role overseeing extremism and pardons.

The announcement came just hours after Trump said he would pull his nomination of Ed Martin to be U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. A key Republican lawmaker, Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, said he would not vote to confirm Martin over his defense of Jan. 6 rioters.

Martin had also faced revelations that his ties to Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, a Nazi-sympathizing participant in the Jan. 6 riot were closer than the nominee had previously described — including under oath in the Senate.

Understanding that Martin was not likely to be confirmed, Trump announced late Thursday that Martin would instead remain a deputy attorney general and become “the new Director of the Weaponization Working Group, Associate Deputy Attorney General, and Pardon Attorney.”

In the role, Martin will “make sure we finally investigate the Weaponization of our Government under the Biden Regime, and provide much needed Justice for its victims,” Trump, who has frequently referred to the Jan. 6 rioters as victims of political persecution and as ‘hostages,” wrote on his social network Truth Social.

At the White House Thursday, Trump praised Martin as “a terrific person” but acknowledged that “he wasn’t getting the support.” He added, “I have to be straight. I was disappointed.”

Martin recently apologized for his past vocal praise of Hale-Cusanelli, who was sentenced to four years in prison for his role on Jan. 6 before being pardoned by Trump along with virtually all other Jan. 6 defendants.

A Navy contractor and ex-Army reservist, Hale-Cusanelli sported a Hitler-like mustache and joked online about killing and eating Jews.

As part of Martin’s advocacy for Jan. 6 defendants, he presented Hale-Cusanelli with an “Eagle Award” during an event held at a Trump golf club last year, where he also called the rioter “extraordinary.” He also interviewed him multiple times on his own podcast.

Martin claimed that, at the time, he had not been aware of the extent of Hale-Cusanelli’s views, which he now called “abhorrent and deplorable.” But reviews of Martin’s media output revealed that he had, in fact, asked Hale-Cusanelli about court reports that he’d shown up to work at a naval weapons station saying, “Hitler should have finished the job,” along with multiple other podcast interviews and interactions.

Eleven mostly liberal and progressive American Jewish groups, including the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and the National Council of Jewish Women, called for a public confirmation hearing for Martin in order to better question him on his ties to antisemites. Democrats including Sen. Dick Durbin also cited Martin’s connection to Hale-Cusanilli from the Senate floor in efforts to tank his nomination.

Martin had been serving in the D.C. prosecutor post on an interim basis — one of the most significant and influential U.S. prosecutor positions — while he waited for Senate confirmation. During that time he has punished or demoted staff who had worked on Jan. 6 prosecutions.

A conservative activist who had no experience as a judge or federal prosecutor prior to his appointment, Martin also has a history of orchestrating attacks on federal judges. He proved his Trump bonafides by organizing “Stop the Steal” rallies challenging the results of the 2020 election Trump lost. He has also compared former President Joe Biden to Adolf Hitler and, once assuming his interim post, referred to himself and federal prosecutors as “the president’s lawyers.”

Tillis, in a rare GOP break with Trump, said he would oppose Martin’s nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee, emphasizing that he objected to Martin’s backing of individuals involved in Jan. 6. His “no” vote would deadlock the committee’s recommendation and was seen as a precursor for other “no” votes from more moderate Republican senators if it advanced to the full floor.

Trump has named Fox News host Jeanine Pirro to replace Martin as interim U.S. attorney for D.C.

On the surface, New York-based filmmaker Yael Melamede’s latest documentary is an intimate story about her mother, award-winning Israeli architect Ada Karmi-Melamede. 

Ada, 88, who was born Mandatory Palestine and comes from a family of architects, is renowned for creating some of Israel’s best-known public buildings, including Ben-Gurion Airport, the Ramat HaNadiv Nature Park Visitor’s Center and, perhaps most notable of all, Israel’s Supreme Court building in Jerusalem. 

While “Ada: My Mother the Architect” pays tribute to Ada’s world-class creations — she won the Israel Prize for Architecture in 2007, like her father and brother before her — the film is also about so much more. Although Ada’s musings on what makes beautiful buildings are both thought-provoking and entertaining, the film is a subdued yet deeply moving meditation on family, the nature of “home,” the challenges working mothers face and, perhaps most of all, the sadness that many Israelis feel about the direction the country is taking. (Filming wrapped in the summer of 2023 as Israel erupted in protests over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempts to curb the power of the Supreme Court.)

“Doing a film about my mother was a way for me to explore my relationship to Israel,” Yael said during a Zoom interview Thursday from her Manhattan home. “I loved the idea of kind of talking about a place indirectly — not about whether it’s good or bad, or right or wrong, but a much more complex story through their perspective.”

In the film, Ada describes how the notion of “roots” forms the backbone of her architectural ideology. “There are buildings that have roots,” she says. “They hit the ground, penetrate it, and take root. You sense that this attachment is a very important part of architectural thinking, because these buildings belong to the place.”

Ada’s roots, Yael explains, are in Israel, where her mother has lived alone for more than 40 years — and where she continues to commute to her Tel Aviv office daily. 

Yael, meanwhile — 57 and the youngest of three children — was born and raised in Manhattan. The family had moved to New York in the 1960s for her father’s business career; the initial plan was to live here a few years and then return to Israel. Instead, though, the Melamedes remained in New York. Here, Ada spent 14 years teaching architecture at Columbia University, where she also worked on large-scale urban initiatives like a master plan for Con Edison and a study for the proposed Second Avenue Subway. 

When Ada was passed over for tenure at Columbia, she returned to Israel to work alongside her brother, architect Ram Karmi, who was well known for his Brutalist style, and her career took off. In 1986, the siblings entered and won a competition to design the Supreme Court building. The project — which New York Times architecture critic Paul Golberger, who appears in the film, described as “a work of considerable subtlety and complexity, so much so that my first thought upon seeing it is not how good it is for Israel, but how sad it is that public architecture in the United States is rarely as thoughtful, and rarely as skillful in combining a sense of monumentality with a sense of easy, inviting accessibility” — came with the stipulation that Ada leave Israel for only a few weeks each year. 

And so Ada stayed in Israel, while her husband Amos and their children remained in New York. 

“Maybe I’m not much of a Jewish mother,” Ada says in the film, when asked about how she handled the distance from her family. “I never really worried about you.”

Yael, in conversation with the New York Jewish Week, as in the film, said she doesn’t view the long-distance relationship with her mother with sadness, nor is a tearful goodbye seared in her memory. “Nobody in my family remembers when she left — she doesn’t remember when she left,” she said. “She was spending a little more time in Israel, and then she was spending a little bit more time, and then they were invited to the competition, and then she was just there.”

In spite of the physical separation, the film shows a palpable closeness between mother and daughter, who switch seamlessly between Hebrew and English. “I think we have a really beautiful relationship,” Yael said. “There’s tons of love between us, but I do think we have an unusual mutual respect. We don’t have a lot of garbage in our relationship.”

She added: “I think she gave me a real gift as a woman, and as a mother, about not ever feeling guilty about working. I didn’t realize how special that was.” (Yael’s son, Niv, who had Type 1 diabetes, tragically died at age 21 near the end of filming “Ada: My Mother the Architect.”) 

It’s possible that mother-daughter even share a similar sense of purpose when it comes to their work. “The role of the architect is to figure out how to work between all the different elements to make something that’s good for everyone,” she said. “That’s the Middle East right there. It’s family, it’s home, it’s politics, it’s about figuring out a better way to live more consciously, more communally.”

Ahead of the theatrical release of “Ada: My Mother the Architect” at the Angelika Film Center, Yael chatted with the New York Jewish Week about motherhood, creating art, building buzz and how this film might challenge audiences’ perspectives on Israel. 

This interview has been condensed and lightly edited. 

What inspired you to make this film about your mother?

It wasn’t like I went into this project knowing what it would be. I just had this feeling that she was really interesting and very mysterious to most of the world — like I know her so well, but other people didn’t, and I felt like she had something really special to offer in this kind of quiet power. I think she’s so strong in a certain way, and so reserved. And I have an interest in people who are really passionate about their work, like they see all of life’s mysteries in that endeavor.

I thought she was really interesting, but I didn’t know how to approach it. It took a long time, and the process of making the film really taught me how to make it …  the kind of balance between architecture and [the] personal, I really just knew nothing going into it other than I thought there was something really special there.

You mentioned how making a film about your mother was an avenue to explore your relationship to Israel. How would you describe that relationship?  

I think it is a place of such extraordinary beauty and talent and innovation and energy. There’s something about the energy of Israel and Israelis that I love so much, but it’s within a context that is becoming increasingly tragic from within and without. 

The other part that I never expected was that the problems that Israel is having would somehow start to be translated into problems we’re having in my primary home, that issues that Israel is facing are issues that we are now facing [in the United States].

Did you learn anything surprising while making the film? 

I knew my mom was a really good teacher, and the students liked her. I had no idea the depth to which students loved her. But there are so many, and the letters that we’ve gotten since the film was finished about what an impact she had as a teacher has been astonishing, really, really astonishing. I didn’t think of that legacy being so strong.

I see you’re hosting a series of post-screening Q&A sessions at the Angelika, featuring a wide variety of special guests, including architecture critic Paul Goldberger, Lab/Shul’s Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie and architect Billie Tsien. How did this come about? 

The independent film business, which I am squarely a part of, is kind of in shambles. It’s really hard to get films out — any films — and a film that has any Israeli content in it whatsoever is even harder. But one of the ways that independent films try to distinguish themselves is by creating interesting conversations around them. I love the Q and A’s that we’re doing, because they’re coming from many different perspectives.

What do you hope audiences will take away from the film? 

I wish that people who had preconceived notions about Israel would watch the film in order for those notions to be a little bit — shattered is not the right word — moved or changed. And then, I think it depends on the person, I’d love for people to think about architecture and about Israel and about motherhood and family in a different way, in a more nuanced way, and to move away in all of those areas harsh judgments of good and bad, right and wrong, and more. You know, how can we live our healthiest lives in the healthiest places, in the healthiest ways.

“Ada: My Mother the Architect” is screening at the Angelika Film Center (18 West Houston St.) on Thursday, May 8. For tickets and more details, click here. 

Police and pro-Palestinian demonstrators clashed at Brooklyn College on Thursday, in the second major confrontation at a New York City campus in two days.

Some of the confrontations, including the tasering of a man who was being arrested, took place outside the Tanger Hillel House at Brooklyn College, the center for Jewish life on campus.

Seven people were reportedly arrested in the incident, which came a day after police arrested 80 people when pro-Palestinian protesters briefly occupied the main library at Columbia University and amid a flare nationally in pro-Palestinian student activism.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the Trump administration was investigating the visa statuses of the 75 or more people arrested at Columbia, which is the epicenter of the administration’s effort to crack down on colleges with pro-Palestinian protests. He did not immediately respond to the incident at Brooklyn College.

There, protesters set up a “Liberated Zone” on the main quad, erecting tents and making demands that included divestment from Israel by the City University of New York system.

The extremist anti-Israel group Within Our Lifetime soon exhorted its followers to turn out to support the protesters. On X, it wrote in all caps: “They need your support! Wear kuffiyehs and masks! Bring flags! And come in groups!”

BREAKING: Tazer Deployed, Arrests and violent Clashes outside of Brooklyn CUNY College after NYPD raided 'Liberated Zone' Encampment inside. pic.twitter.com/ahLYHEtOEn

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) May 8, 2025

The group added, “Brooklyn College is in a heavily Zionist neighborhood so be on high alert,” ending with a series of Palestinian flag emojis. Brooklyn College is at the intersection of Flatbush and Midwood neighborhoods, where many residents are Orthodox Jews.

Brooklyn College said it called in the NYPD on Thursday afternoon because the demonstrators had violated the school’s prohibition on putting up tents and ignored repeated requests to remove them. Many schools adopted or reinforced rules against tents after last year’s pro-Palestinian encampment movement.

“The safety of our campus community will always be paramount, and Brooklyn College respects the right to protest while also adhering to strict rules meant to ensure the safe operation of our university,” the spokesperson said.

As officers amassed on site, Within Our Lifetime — which regularly targets Jewish sites and features antisemitism at its rallies — issued several more urgent calls for reinforcements. The campus protesters exited the campus “without incident,” according to a report in The City. But soon, protesters from the college, Within Our Lifetime followers and dozens of police officers were all commingled on Campus Road, outside the Hillel building, the largest in the CUNY system.

In the clashes, captured on video attributed to FreedomNews.TV, protesters can be heard screaming at the police officers as officers push back the crowd, at times pushing or throwing protesters to the ground. One man is tasered while being handcuffed, while at another point an officer exhorts a person present to, “Get that baby out of here.”

The identities of those arrested and cited by police and whether they are affiliated with Brooklyn College was not immediately clear.

The incident came a day after federal prosecutors announced that they had charged a New York City man who had been arrested at three different protests corresponding to ones organized by Within Our Lifetime with hate crimes after learning that he allegedly described himself as a “Jew hater.”

Three dozen former leaders of prominent American Jewish organizations have signed a letter calling on the groups they once led to “resist the exploitation of Jewish fears.”

The letter, which was published as a full-page ad on Thursday in The New York Times, included signatures from past chairs and CEOs of some of the largest Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Agency for Israel, the American Jewish Committee, Hillel International, the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

“With few exceptions, major Jewish organizations have been far too silent about the stunning assault on democratic norms and the rule of law,” the letter read. “While modest declarations of ‘respecting the rule of law’ and similar phrases have been included in multiple organizational statements, we believe the present moment requires far more.”

The letter added, “We urge Jewish leadership to forcefully and publicly reaffirm the historic and continuing commitment of the American Jewish community to academic freedom, to the rule of law, to ensure due process to anyone accused of breaking the law, to freedom of speech and the press.”

Some liberal and centrist American Jewish groups — including the rabbinical associations of the Reform and Conservative movements — have condemned the Trump administration’s recent crackdown on campus antisemitism, which has included billions of dollars in funding cuts and arrests of campus pro-Palestinian protesters.

Others have aired more guarded criticism. Last month, Hillel CEO Adam Lehman expressed “concern” over planned deportations and federal funding freezes.

The former CEO of Hillel International, Wayne L. Firestone, and its former chair, Randall Kaplan, signed the letter urging more action. The list of signatories also included:

• Charles Ratner, former board chair of the Jewish Agency for Israel
• Seymour D. Reich, former chair of the Conference of Presidents
• Alisa Doctoroff, former board chair of the Jim Joseph Foundation
• John Ruskay, former CEO of UJA-Federation of New York
• Robert Sugarman, former ADL national chair
• Ruth Messinger, former Manhattan borough president and American Jewish World Service CEO

The letter also included signatures from past leaders of local Jewish Federations in cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami.

The Israeli electronic surveillance company NSO Group was ordered to pay $167 million in damages to WhatsApp and its parent company Meta, bringing a close to six years of litigation.

WhatsApp filed suit against NSO in 2019 in U.S. federal court, alleging it hacked 1,400 WhatsApp users, including journalists and government officials, using its Pegasus surveillance tool.

The ruling Tuesday marks a major win for privacy advocates that have fought against the company’s spyware. It is also the latest setback for NSO, which was sanctioned by the United States in November 2021 after revelations that its products enabled repressive regimes to spy on dissidents, journalists and humanitarian workers.

The same month, Apple also filed a lawsuit against NSO seeking to prevent the company from using Apple software. In September, Apple sought to drop the suit, arguing that its disclosures could aid NSO.

WhatsApp Head Will Cathcart said in a post on X that “the jury’s verdict today to punish NSO is a critical deterrent to the spyware industry against their illegal acts aimed at American companies and our users worldwide.”

The ruling, which was delivered by Judge Phyllis Hamilton of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, found that the company had broken cybersecurity laws and used its “zero-click” spyware to hack the accounts.

Pegasus is able to remotely infect user’s devices without their knowledge. NSO vehemently denied the allegations during the trial, and argued that it was not responsible for how its customers used the spyware.

“We will carefully examine the verdict’s details and pursue appropriate legal remedies, including further proceedings and an appeal,” said Gil Lainer, NSO vice president for global communication, in a statement. “We firmly believe that our technology plays a critical role in preventing serious crime and terrorism and is deployed responsibly by authorized government agencies.”

NSO was ordered to pay $167 million in punitive damages to WhatsApp as well as $444,000 in compensatory damages.

In a blog post following the verdict, WhatsApp said it will make a donation to “digital rights organizations that are working to defend people against such attacks around the world,” and will seek a court order preventing NSO from attacking WhatsApp again.

Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood announced the cancellation of shows with an Israeli musician in the United Kingdom after he said a campaign by a pro-Palestinian group led to “enough credible threats to conclude that it’s not safe to proceed.”

Greenwood said he would no longer perform in Bristol and London in June with longtime collaborator Dudu Tassa, an Israeli rock star, as well as an ensemble of singers from Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait and Iraq.

The campaign was carried out by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, which decried the musician’s collaboration with Tassa, the grandson of famed Iraqi Jewish composer Daoud Al-Kuwaity, who emigrated to Israel in 1951.

In a post on X, PACBI denied that its campaign had led to safety threats but said Greenwood and Tassa bear “well-documented complicity in artwashing genocide.”

Greenwood and Tassa said in their extensive statement that they had also received backlash from “some on the right” who say the duo’s recent Arabic folk album is “too inclusive.” The album features a host of musicians from across the Middle East including a Palestinian singer, Nour Freteikh.

“This project has always had a difficult, narrow channel to navigate. We find ourselves in the odd position of being condemned by both ends of the political spectrum,” they wrote.

“For some on the right, we’re playing the ‘wrong’ kind of music — too inclusive, too aware of the rich and beautiful diversity of Middle Eastern culture. For some on the left, we’re only playing it to absolve ourselves of our collective sins,” the duo continued. “We dread the weaponization of this cancellation by reactionary figures as much as we lament its celebration by some progressives.”

They called for freedom of expression for artists “regardless of their citizenship or their religion — and certainly regardless of the decisions made by their government.”

Greenwood, who is married to Israeli visual artist Sharona Katan, has repeatedly faced — and rebuffed — criticism over his stance on Israel.

In 2017, Tassa and Israeli musician Shye Ben Tzur opened for Radiohead and were targeted by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. Ahead of the band’s 2017 concert in Tel Aviv, lead singer Thom Yorke called the criticism “offensive.”

Last summer, Greenwood rejected calls to cancel his tour with Tassa after the pair made an album together titled “Jarak Qaribak,” or “Your Neighbor is Your Friend” in Arabic.

The new controversy comes as other prominent musicians face criticism for their activism surrounding the war in Gaza. Last month, the Irish rap group Kneecap received backlash for cheering, “Up Hamas, up Hezbollah” at a concert last year. They also projected “F–k Israel. Free Palestine.” during their Coachella performance last month. Following criticism, they denounced Hamas and Hezbollah.

Greenwood and Tassa cited the Kneecap controversy in their address on X, noting that dozens of artists denounced “political repression of artistic freedom” in a statement supporting the band.

“We have no judgment to pass on Kneecap but note how sad it is that those supporting their freedom of expression are the same ones most determined to restrict ours,” the pair wrote.

Cardinal Robert Prevost, who was just elected as Pope Leo XIV, studied under a pioneer in Jewish-Catholic relations when he attended seminary in Chicago. 

The Rev. John T. Pawlikowski, who taught for nearly half a century at the Catholic Theological Union until his retirement in 2017, served as co-founder and director of the school’s Catholic-Jewish Studies Program and also served four terms on the board of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. 

More than 40 years after Leo’s ordination as a priest, Pawlikowski remembers the new pope as a good student with an open mind. 

“I do remember him as a pretty bright student,” Pawlikowski said in an interview shortly after his former student was introduced to the world as the sitting bishop of Rome. 

Pawlikowski added later, “My experience of him was he’s a very open-minded person who’s very much in the context of Vatican II.”

Vatican II, or the Second Vatican Council, inaugurated a new era in Jewish-Catholic relations in 1965 when it issued a document, Nostra Aetate, repudiating antisemitism and stating that the Jewish people were not responsible for Jesus’ death. Ties between the two religious communities were blossoming at the time when Leo was studying for the priesthood in the late 1970s and early ‘80s. 

Under Pawlikowski, Leo studied Catholic social teaching, which focuses on social and economic issues. Pawlikowski says relations with Jews are relevant to that field. CTU has also had a commitment to Catholic-Jewish relations since its founding and launched its formal program in the field in 1968.

“’I’ve always argued that antisemitism is something that has to be counted as part of the Catholic commitment to social justice and human dignity,” he said. “My work on Catholic social teaching did include always the issue of antisemitism.”

The pope spent much of his career in Peru and is thought of as a relative centrist and Vatican insider. He hasn’t been a prominent figure in Jewish-Catholic dialogue or fighting antisemitism, and doesn’t appear to have commented publicly on Israel or the war in Gaza. Pope Francis, his predecessor, did opine on those issues and had relations with Jewish leaders in his native Argentina.

But Leo’s coming of age in the era of Vatican II — plus his roots in Chicago, which has a large Jewish community, also lead Rabbi Noam Marans, the American Jewish Committee’s director of interreligious and intergroup relations, to feel optimistic. 

“He studied at CTU under John Pawlikowski and in the post-Nostra Aetate era, in the country where Catholic-Jewish relations is preeminent,” Marans said in an interview. “An American pope bodes well for the future of Catholic-Jewish relations. More than anywhere in the world, the relationship between Catholics and Jews has flourished and set a gold standard in the United States.”

While Francis was outspoken in his opposition to antisemitism and his promotion of ties with Jews, he raised the ire of some Jewish leaders in recent years for his criticism of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. One of his last acts as pope was to donate his popemobile to Gaza as a mobile medical unit. 

Pawlikowski said he believes “there’s a desire to carry on” with Catholic-Jewish relations, though he added, “the situation in Israel and Gaza has had a dramatic effect.”

Will his former student begin a new chapter in Catholic-Jewish ties? Pawlikowski said it’s too soon to tell, given that Leo has not thus far focused on the issue. 

“He hasn’t really been stationed in any area where there was a really pronounced Jewish community,” he said. “On the question of interreligious [affairs], he’ll have to show us where he is, but I would assume he had an outgoing, positive attitude generally.”

In his first address as pope, Leo issued a call to dialogue. 

“Help us as well—help one another—to build bridges through dialogue, through encounter, uniting everyone to be one single people always in peace,” he said. 

Rabbi Joshua Stanton, associate vice president for interfaith and intergroup initiatives at the Jewish Federations of North America, saw that as a sign that the pope is committed to Catholic-Jewish relations. He noted that this year is Nostra Aetate’s 60th anniversary, which he hopes Leo commemorates in an active way. 

“I’m very hopeful that he referenced the importance of dialogue and reaching out beyond the Catholic Church to other religious communities,” Stanton said. Stanton noted that Leo has a reputation for “quiet efficacy,” and as he settles into his position, Stanton said he’ll be looking at how the pontiff acts. 

“Does he invite Jewish leaders to the Vatican to meet with him?” he said. “Does he invite leaders from other traditions? Does he try to bring multiple groups together at the same time?”

The focus of Leo’s address on Thursday was peace. With war raging in Gaza, Marans did not take that as a specific reference to the Middle East. 

“All popes want peace,” he said. “May I add, all Catholics, Jews, rabbis want peace.”

Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, continued his string of antisemitic provocations on Thursday as he released a new music video for a song called “Heil Hitler.”

“All my n****s Nazis, n***a, heil Hitler,” Ye sings on the song’s synth-heavy chorus, over video of three rows of Black men wearing animal skins and repeating the lyrics. 

The track ends with a lengthy sample from a Hitler speech, which Ye also quoted on his X account: ‘Whether you think my work is right, whether you believe that I have been diligent. That I have worked, that I have stood up for you during these years, that I have used my time decently in the service of my people. You cast your vote now, if yes, then stand up for me as I stood up for you.’ “

Ye was one of the most popular and influential musicians in the world before publicly embracing antisemitic beliefs in 2022. Since then he has lost lucrative corporate partnerships, the support of much of the music industry and, he claims, custody of his children from ex-wife Kim Kardashian, while continuing to spread antisemitism despite the occasional promise to stop.

Ye aired some of those grievances on the track, which opens with the lines, “Man these people took my kids from me, then they froze my bank account. I got so much anger in me, got no way to take it out. Think I’m stuck in the matrix.” 

He soon segues into the line, “So I became a Nazi, yeah, bitch, I’m the villain.”

As of Thursday afternoon the music video was still playable on Ye’s X account, though not on his YouTube account. Multiple versions of the song uploaded to SoundCloud also appear to have been removed; on X, Ye claimed it had been “banned by all digital streaming platforms.”

Ye’s team says the song will be featured on his upcoming album “Cuck” (Internet slang for “cuckold,” a term for a husband whose wife is unfaithful) which also includes tracks titled “Gas Chambers,” “WW3” and “Hitler Ye and Jesus.” The album art depicts two figures wearing hooded Ku Klux Klan-like robes in different colors, while the art for the “Heil Hitler” song shows a swastika-like doodle.

The American Jewish Committee quickly condemned the song. “This is blatant antisemitism, and it’s disgusting,” CEO Ted Deutch said in a statement. “Ye is profiting off of Jew-hatred, and the music industry needs to step up and speak out against this obscenity.”

The song follows a brief effort by Ye, a onetime fashion maven, to sell swastika-emblazoned T-shirts online. He purchased a Super Bowl television ad this year to sell the shirts.

In recent weeks Ye has posted media of himself with white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, with whom he dined with President Donald Trump in 2022. “I’m here with my white supremacist homeboy Nick. We’re back,” Ye said while wearing a swastika necklace in a video he posted, then deleted, last month. 

Fuentes celebrated the new song on X in advance of its release, writing, “Imagine 50,000 people in a stadium on their feet singing every word.”

While promoting “Heil Hitler,” Ye also took a moment to praise Jewish livestreamer Adin Ross, calling him “a positive person” and celebrating a recent livestream Ross held with the Jewish rapper Drake. In February during a feud with Ross, Ye wrote on X, “JEWS ARE ARROGANT AND THINK THEY CAN SPEAK TO ANYONE THEY WANT ANY KIND OF WAY THATS WHY EVERY JEWISH WIFE IS A BITCH,” and posted a photo of him texting the streamer a Holocaust reference: “HOW YALL SAY IT NEVER AGAIN.” 

A man who self-identified as a “Jew hater” and attacked Jewish pro-Israel protesters at three separate pro-Palestinian rallies has been charged with three counts of committing hate crimes.

Tarek Bazrouk, 20, of New York City, had been arrested at three different protests over a period of nine months where he kicked and punched Jewish pro-Israel demonstrators, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. On Wednesday, he was arrested again and charged with hate crimes in connection with the incidents.

“Despite being arrested after each incident, Bazrouk allegedly remained undeterred and quickly returned to using violence to target Jews in New York City,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York in a statement.

During the first assault, which took place near the New York Stock Exchange on April 15, 2024, Bazrouk allegedly wore the green headband associated with Hamas and was arrested by police after he allegedly lunged at a group of pro-Israel protesters. As he was escorted by police, he then allegedly kicked a Jewish college student in the stomach.

On Dec. 9, 2024, at another pro-Palestinian protest near Columbia University, Bazrouk stole an Israeli flag from a Jewish Columbia student, punched him in the face and hurled antisemitic slurs after the student pursued him.

The final assault occurred near NYU Tisch Hospital when it was targeted by activists on Jan. 6, 2025. Bazrouk allegedly punched a Jewish pro-Israel protester in the nose after the individual pushed Bazrouk off of him. He was arrested after all three assaults.

Within Our Lifetime, an extremist anti-Israel activist group that regularly targets Jewish sites and features antisemitism at its rallies, organized or participated in protests in each location on those dates.

According to an investigation by law enforcement after the string of attacks, text messages on Bazrouk’s phone allegedly showed him identifying as a “Jew hater” and labelling Jews as “worthless.” He also allegedly called on “Allah” to “get us rid of [Jews],” called someone a “f—ing Jew” and instructed a friend to “slap that bitch” in reference to a woman with an Israeli sticker on her laptop, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

His phone also included several examples of pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah propaganda, and said he was “mad happy” after learning during a trip to the West Bank in 2024 that his relatives were a part of Hamas, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

Bazrouk pleaded not guilty to the three hate crime charges Wednesday, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

In New York, tensions over the war in Gaza have escalated to physical violence on several occasions, and have led to prosecutions for antisemitic hate crimes. At Columbia on Wednesday, two officers were hurt in a protest at the school’s library. Last month, following an anti-Zionist demonstration in Crown Heights, one protester was arrested, and a viral video circulated showing Jewish men assaulting a woman.

An Israeli released from Hamas captivity earlier this year is objecting to the Pulitzer Prize awarded this week to Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha, charging that he is “the modern-day equivalent of a Holocaust denier” because of his derisive comments about her and other hostages.

Emily Damari issued an open letter to the members of the Pulitzer Prize board on social media on Thursday, saying that she had felt “shock and pain” when she saw that Abu Toha had received the prestigious award. She wrote:

This is a man who, in January, questioned the very fact of my captivity. He posted about me on Facebook and asked, “How on earth is this girl called a hostage?” He has denied the murder of the Bibas family. He has questioned whether Agam Berger was truly a hostage. These are not word games – they are outright denials of documented atrocities.

You claim to honor journalism that upholds truth, democracy, and human dignity. And yet you have chosen to elevate a voice that denies truth, erases victims, and desecrates the memory of the murdered.

Do you not see what this means? Mosab Abu Toha is not a courageous writer. He is the modern-day equivalent of a Holocaust denier. And by honoring him, you have joined him in the shadows of denial.

Damari was captured from her home on Kibbutz Kfar Aza on Oct. 7, 2023. She was shot twice, losing two fingers, and was held hostage for 471 days before being released during a temporary ceasefire in January. Since then, the gesture she made with her bandaged hand has become a symbol of defiance for many Israelis. Her best friends, Gali and Ziv Berman, are among the up to two dozen Israeli hostages thought to remain alive in Gaza.

Her post comes a day after the pro-Israel media watchdog Honest Reporting published an expose on Abu Toha’s social media posts, showing that he had published disparaging comments about hostages. The posts it called attention to have since been removed.

Abu Toha posts on Facebook multiple times a day to chronicle Israeli strikes in Gaza, name Gazans killed there and criticize media coverage of the war. The Pulitzer committee recognized him for four essays published in the New Yorker about his experience as a Palestinian who left Gaza during the war.

Currently a visiting scholar at Syracuse University, he has said he is fearful of traveling amid a crackdown on pro-Palestinian activists by the Trump administration. A pro-Israel Jewish group, Betar US, has called for Abu Toha to be deported because of his comments.